Ubuntu – Getting Wireless to Work, Dell Inspiron E1505 (bcm4311)

-setupbroadcomdellinspironwireless

Ok. so I know there are about a million threads on this subject already, but NOTHING has worked for me. About to lose my mind here, if someone can please help I will be eternally grateful.

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 which has a Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 wireless controller. I can't get it to work.

I've followed the steps outlined on the following sites:

How can I get Broadcom BCM4311 Wireless working?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2072887
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper

and more. Nothing is working, and I'm on the verge of giving up. As a Linux newbie I can only imagine I'm missing something stupidly obvious. If someone could give me a step-by-step instruction for going from a completely fresh 12.10 install to having a working wifi connection I would be (as mentioned earlier) eternally grateful. Please let me know if anyone needs more info.

Best Answer

On a clean install, connect an ethernet cable, open a terminal window, and run

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

Then run echo b43 | sudo tee -a /etc/modules to make sure the module is autoloaded. Reboot, and if all goes well, the wireless should work.